This is the first episode of season nine, quite amazing to think that I am this far into it. This is the 60th story of Doctor Who and coincidentally it has been decided to bring the Daleks back after Terry Nation’s attempt to take over America didn’t work when he realised that outside of Doctor Who they don’t really have much value.
The last time I saw an episode with them in was technically episode two of ‘The Evil of the Daleks’ but the last time they featured in a story was way back on October 31st 2013, an amazing 135 days ago. Since they last appeared Victoria, Zoe and Liz have all been and gone, Jamie also left and Jo has arrived. The show is now in colour and the cosmic hobo has been replaced by a dashing dandy. A lot has changed in 135 days.
I’ve decided to watch the original version instead of the special edition version with good stuff put in, partly because this version (to the best of my knowledge) is the four part version.
The episode starts off with quite a mystery. Sir Reginald Styles is working and encounters someone in military gear and is about to shoot him before disappearing. The current setting of the story is that Styles is involved in some peace talks that may not go ahead unless he intervenes. This might sound similar to what was happening in ‘The Mind of Evil’ but at least they made the effort in trying to put a different spin of world peace.
It takes 13 minutes for the Daleks to appear and that’s quite quick compared to previous stories featuring them. It’s a nice but brief scene and that’s it until the very end. It’s almost like they wanted to get their first appearance out of the way so that they could carry on telling the story. The Doctor and Jo become 1970’s Ghost Hunters as they spend the night in Styles house. It’s rather uneventful and nothing happens until daylight. This seems like more of an attempt to just keep them busy until the guerrillas appear again. The Brigadier does more in this episode than he did in the five episodes of ‘The Daemons’.
The controller set does a good job of looking futuristic, the controller himself is rather good and looks very different to most humans. He is the latest is a long line of people who are working for the Daleks. His involvement doesn’t get much mention in this episode but its clear that there’s more than meets the eye and this will become evident in future episodes.
The Daleks’ voices are not the greatest. The advantage to watching the new version is that Nicholas Briggs is the voice and it’s a lot better. Sadly due to the fact that I am not listening to Briggs’ voice means that the ending isn’t quite as good as it could be. I have to admit that this episode is rather underwhelmed by this episode. Considering it’s the first Dalek story for five years (or 135 days), I would have expected there to be more of a deal made of this fact. The fact that they are given such a low key return is rather unsettling and I hope that I feel better as the episode progress.
The last time I saw an episode with them in was technically episode two of ‘The Evil of the Daleks’ but the last time they featured in a story was way back on October 31st 2013, an amazing 135 days ago. Since they last appeared Victoria, Zoe and Liz have all been and gone, Jamie also left and Jo has arrived. The show is now in colour and the cosmic hobo has been replaced by a dashing dandy. A lot has changed in 135 days.
I’ve decided to watch the original version instead of the special edition version with good stuff put in, partly because this version (to the best of my knowledge) is the four part version.
The episode starts off with quite a mystery. Sir Reginald Styles is working and encounters someone in military gear and is about to shoot him before disappearing. The current setting of the story is that Styles is involved in some peace talks that may not go ahead unless he intervenes. This might sound similar to what was happening in ‘The Mind of Evil’ but at least they made the effort in trying to put a different spin of world peace.
It takes 13 minutes for the Daleks to appear and that’s quite quick compared to previous stories featuring them. It’s a nice but brief scene and that’s it until the very end. It’s almost like they wanted to get their first appearance out of the way so that they could carry on telling the story. The Doctor and Jo become 1970’s Ghost Hunters as they spend the night in Styles house. It’s rather uneventful and nothing happens until daylight. This seems like more of an attempt to just keep them busy until the guerrillas appear again. The Brigadier does more in this episode than he did in the five episodes of ‘The Daemons’.
The controller set does a good job of looking futuristic, the controller himself is rather good and looks very different to most humans. He is the latest is a long line of people who are working for the Daleks. His involvement doesn’t get much mention in this episode but its clear that there’s more than meets the eye and this will become evident in future episodes.
The Daleks’ voices are not the greatest. The advantage to watching the new version is that Nicholas Briggs is the voice and it’s a lot better. Sadly due to the fact that I am not listening to Briggs’ voice means that the ending isn’t quite as good as it could be. I have to admit that this episode is rather underwhelmed by this episode. Considering it’s the first Dalek story for five years (or 135 days), I would have expected there to be more of a deal made of this fact. The fact that they are given such a low key return is rather unsettling and I hope that I feel better as the episode progress.
No comments:
Post a Comment